As the shift from using land lines to mobile phones happened during this past decade, the calling plans competition of the 90's is being redefined to suit the new ubiquitous mobile space and emerging technologies built on it. In the meantime, consumers are still struggling with surprise monthly bills (fear factor), roaming fees, costs of SMS messaging, ambiguity and complexity of the mobile bills and tariff especially those that travel frequently. Interestingly enough, users face even more problems and problems are even more complex as the mobile service provider continues to integrate with the web and is limiting the ability of the mainstream to take-up richer mobile scenarios.
It is found that Gartner estimates that the sales of mobile phone unit will exceed one billion by 2009. There are about 750+ major mobile network operators worldwide with no international regulation in place yet. From a consumer perspective, it is a very difficult problem to digest this data and make thrifty choices when simply wanting to make a phone call or send and SMS text message.
Furthermore, every individual or a group of individuals has certain unique needs based on their usage of mobile phones. Currently, users are unable to properly manage their usage or monitor their wireless service usage on an individual basis. Also, the mobile service provider is unwilling to provide adequate and timely cost-saving information to the user because it is not the mobile service provider's best interest to help the user in this aspect.